


Partial Eclipse

by inkspot_fox



Series: Beyond Destiny [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Backstory, Because Sith Inquisitor backstory, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Gay Male Character, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Sith!Kat AU, Slavery, Suicidal Thoughts, and the Empire is an awful awful place, but not enough to warrant the archive warning, minor original character death, vague references to sexual encounters between teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkspot_fox/pseuds/inkspot_fox
Summary: The man who will someday become Darth Occlus is only five when he runs away from home, pulled by the inexplicable knowledge that everything waits for him beyond Socorro's gravity well. He is guided by the Force, but the Force is not always kind.





	Partial Eclipse

**Author's Note:**

> This is a parallel piece to [Star Formation](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544696/chapters/23286238). The first halves of these works are nearly identical; the timeline diverges halfway through. In Star Formation, Katsulas becomes the Jedi Knight. In Partial Eclipse, he becomes the Sith Inquisitor.
> 
> This piece gets very dark. And by very dark, I mean actual details of the Sith Inquisitor backstory that the game just references and all that that entails: murder, child slavery, slavery in fucking general, suicidal thoughts, and self-harm references. None of it is graphically written, but the themes are graphic in and of themselves. 
> 
> Additionally, there is a very brief and _vague_ reference to consensual sexual encounters between a sixteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old. Nothing is remotely explicit or really described, but that said, if you have a problem with this, please go elsewhere.

Katsulas is five when he runs away from home, pulled by the inexplicable knowledge that _everything_ waits for him beyond Socorro's gravity well, and pushed by the quiet, aching certainty that he will not be missed if he leaves. It does not occur to him that he is too young to know such things for certain, or that the path he is being pushed down may not be in his best interests. He follows his instincts, and his instincts tell him that there is nothing left for him here.

He is small and quick and clever, and somehow he knows exactly where to step and where to hide. The smugglers don't even realize he’s there when he slips onto their ship. The last glimpse Katsulas has of his homeworld is of Sokor’s red glow hemorrhaging over burnt black sand dunes, the wind already swallowing his footprints until nothing remains to mark his passing. Kat wonders how long it will take for his parents to notice that he’s missing. One day? Two? A week?

It doesn’t matter. They’re in the past now.

Kat tucks himself into a hidden compartment (sharp with the crisp smell of fresh water and soothing with the warm, rhythmic thrum of machinery all around him). He uses his pack as a pillow and curls up on cold metal in the darkness. He falls asleep to the steady rumbling of engines, the oscillating murmur of voices and laughter, and the quick tap of boots rattling the hidden panel above his head. He dreams of alien stars and distant worlds lush with color and life. He does not think of his parents again for many years (and by then it is far, far too late).

They are well into hyperspace when Katsulas is finally discovered and hauled up out of his hiding space by the back of his collar. When he sees the age lines of the Captain’s face scarring deeper with rage, he is terrified that the whispers in his head have lead him not to vivid exoplanets and ancient wonders, but to the acid-green flash of a blaster bolt: a short, sad end to a short, sad life.

But the Captain does not shoot him. Instead she lifts him bodily by the back of his collar and marches down a maze of corridors, finally tossing him at a startled zabrak who smells strongly of garlic and onions. “You’ll earn your passage, boy,” she snaps. “Qeno, put him to work.” When she leaves, air seems to flood back into the room, and Kat’s shoulders sag with shaky relief.

‘Qeno’ has a Type O bright smile and hair the color of a red giant star. She looks down at him and smooths his black hair away from his warm brown face. “You got a name, youngling?” she asks him.

The boy frowns at her with suspicion, and he juts his chin out defiantly as he answers: “Kat.”

“You hungry, Kat?”

He nods once.

“Well, give me a hand in the galley and you can have some of whatever we make.”

Kat relaxes visibly and hazards the tiniest twitch of a smile.

Qeno studies him for a moment, then adds, “Captain F'ahn isn’t a bad sort. Keep your fingers where they belong and stay out of her way, and you’ll be fine. What’re you running from anyway? You’re awfully _young_.”

Kat shakes his head. “Not running from. Running _to_.”

Qeno arches a hairless brow. "Uh huh. All right, so you're a barvy one." She shrugs and grins crookedly. "Guess you'll fit right in."

And he does. Kat is quiet, intelligent, and hardworking. Some of the crew aren't happy about having a child on board, but the complaints stop dead the first time Kat warns them—his wide grey eyes bright with panic—about a Republic customs ambush a full minute before it actually happens.

Kat isn't sure how he knows these things. He just knows them. All that really matters to him now, at five years old, is that he has a new place to call home.

* * *

 

He is six when he meets Zovae in a small, hidden settlement on Erysthes. Smiles come easily to Katsulas now. He quickly befriends the old mirialan mechanic who smells comfortingly of metal dust, oil, and ozone. When Kat presses his hand to a cover panel on the engine Zovae is working on, he feels warmth within the cool metal, and his fingertips spark. Kat laughs, delighted. "Teach me!" he begs, looking up at Zovae.

Somehow the laugh lines that deepen around Zovae's smiling mouth and the edges of her warm eyes make her younger, rather than aging her. "Teach you what?"

"Everything! I want to learn it all! All of this." Kat presses his remaining hand to the cover panel and splays both sets of fingers.

Zovae laughs again and shakes her head. "That would take a very long time, and you'll be leaving once I get this fixed for your Captain."

Kat frowns briefly as he considers this. Then his expression clears, and there is certainty in his strange grey eyes. "Yeah, but I'll be back. The Captain likes it here. She thinks it's safe, and she wants you to fix the ship whenever something gets broken."

Zovae blinks, startled. She narrows her violet eyes at Kat, studying him, and then closes them as she sighs. "Stars," she murmurs, so quietly that Kat almost doesn't hear her. "Do they even realize—" She shakes her head. "Of course they do." When she looks down at him again, her gentle smile returns. "All right, little one. Let's see if you can keep up."

He does, much to Zovae's joy. Kat isn't a natural—he stumbles and fights with concepts beyond basic complexity—but he's clever, and his enthusiasm, dedication, and small gift of intuition make up for his frustrations.

When Kat does have to leave, he is not gone for long, just as he'd predicted. Over the next four years, Captain F'ahn returns every few months to the quiet, hidden settlement just to lie low, make repairs, and share gossip. It's safe, comfortable, and the colonists always have a good supply of chak-root to trade with. It doesn't hurt that Kat's rapidly increasing mechanical proficiency has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. The ship’s on-board mechanic is already sizing Katsulas up as a potential apprentice.

Qeno cracks jokes about having to share joint custody of Katsulas whenever they're planetside on Erysthes. Kat just gives her a gap-toothed grin as he leaves for Zovae's shop and says, "You should come too. Zovae likes pazaak. She gave me my own starter deck. The three of us could play each other in turns."

To Kat's absolute delight, a few minutes later he spots Qeno walking down the path towards them to Zovae's garage, lunches for three in one hand and her card deck in the other. She smiles when she sees Kat and Zovae waving at her in welcome. Kat pulls out another chair and clears the table to make room for one more.

Kat has finally found himself a family. It's technically his second one, but this one matters more.

But like the first one, it doesn't last.

* * *

 

He is ten when he learns what charred flesh smells like. It smells like Qeno’s cooking, with an undertone of ozone and burnt hair. But it’s _Zovae_ lying in front of him, her fingers peeling and swollen, her once-green skin now blackened and split like a charred roast left too long in the oven. Kat looks at the boiled mess that was Zovae’s kind, crinkled, warm face, and suddenly he’s bent over in the nearest corner of the shop, heaving out the contents of his stomach between sobs until there’s nothing left but acid and foam and salt from tears dripping into the corners of his mouth.

He is shaking. He is hollow and cold. The inside of his head feels emptied out and stuffed with rotting cotton. Kat can hear voices somewhere outside—the rest of the crew scouting out the damage and checking for survivors or for lingering enemies.

Enemies. Murderers. _Pirates_.

Suddenly Kat knows them for who and what they are. More importantly, he knows _where_ they are. He can sense them, smouldering like hot coals in his brain. It doesn’t occur to Kat to question _how_ he knows these things. ‘How’ doesn’t matter. All that matters now is revenge. They killed Zovae. They burned her alive.

Kat will make them hurt so much worse.

As he sprints into the jungle, someone shouts his name. Kat barely notices over the roar of blood in his ears and the rage crackling within his sternum. It will be months before he can look back and realize that the person calling after him had been Qeno. But by then, all he will be able to feel is _bitterness_ that she didn’t follow after him, that _no one_ followed after him.

As he closes in on the pirates’ location, Katsulas finds power crackling at his fingertips, and he takes it _all_. He is already lost; it's easy to lose himself further, to let go entirely for the sake of power and vengeance. He's not just a boy any longer—he is a _conduit_.

He bursts into the clearing where the pirates are loading the last of their stolen cargo. The nearest of the crew haven't even noticed him yet when the first wave of pure Force slams into them, flinging five of their number into the air. Three die with splintered bones and ruptured organs as they smash against their ship's hull. The other two are caught in a large speeder's engine exhaust burn. Another one (lucky enough not to have been in the initial blast's path) rushes Katsulas with a blade, and he _screams_ at her; the raw power that rips from Kat's throat leaves his own mouth full of blood, but leaves the pirate sprawled on her back and clawing blindly at her face as she hemorrhages from her nose, eyes, and ears.

Katsulas leaves her on the ground and advances on the remaining pirates. They have their blasters and rifles in their hands now, taking aim at him from behind sturdy cover.

It is only by the will of the Force that he is not killed then and there.

The will of the Force is not always kind.

Katsulas is ten years old when he channels his grief and rage into crackling violet-white lightning for the first time, right at the pirate Captain's face. The Captain howls in agony.

But before Kat can expand the field to engulf the remaining pirates, two blaster rifle bolts catch him in the shoulder and abdomen. The lightning field surrounding Kat attenuates the shots, but not enough to shield him entirely.

Katsulas drops like a stone, but before the entire world goes black, he sees the ship he’d called home for four years leaving the atmosphere—leaving him behind.

Consciousness returns hours later, and it feels like a fever dream. He is on a ship, but it’s not Captain F’ahn’s ship. The sounds are all wrong. The smells are all wrong. The _feel_ of the ship is all _wrong_ in a way that he wouldn’t be able to explain even if his thoughts weren’t disjointed and scattered. He can’t focus, and he can’t move his arms or his legs. Everything hurts. He drifts in and out of fitful nightmares; even in dreams he cannot escape the memories of Zovae’s body and the smell of burning hair.

The pirate Captain visits him just once, while Kat is lucid enough to understand him. The Captain informs Kat of the damage he’s caused, both in terms of cargo and crew. Neither are cheap to replace, and the only reason Kat isn’t dead is because the Captain intends to extract those losses from his hide.

Certain clients in Hutt space will pay a good deal of money for a Force-sensitive slave.

* * *

 

He is eleven when he finally gets sold to the Sith Empire. He has burned through three masters by then—Katsulas is too defiant and has too strong a will to be easily controlled, and he is angry. He has never been so angry in his short life.

But he is too valuable to simply kill, so it is inevitable that he eventually finds himself in the humid, miserable jungles of Dromund Kaas, just far enough outside the boundaries of Kaas City itself that he rarely sees any Sith. His new “masters” were not told of his Force sensitivity, and for the first time, Katsulas is afraid of what will happen if his gifts are discovered.

The storms are constant and suffocating, but close enough to the rumble of a ship’s engine that sometimes Kat can trick himself into thinking that he’s back on F’ahn’s ship, safe and cool and dry.

Those nights are the worst to wake up from. Eventually he stops dreaming of F’ahn’s ship, and of Qeno and Zovae. When he does remember them, all he remembers is that no one came after him. No one tried to save him. He remembers watching the ship leaving atmo, and hatred festers in his heart.

Katsulas is a survivor. He can’t call the lightning on demand—he doesn’t know how—so with no way to fight back, he keeps his head down. He watches the other slaves. He learns what not to do or say. For the first time in years, he thinks of his parents on Socorro, and he wishes desperately that he could take it all back.

* * *

 

He is fourteen when he tries to kill himself for the first time. There’s no end in sight, but he’s too afraid of the overseers and the horrors that lurk just beyond the edge of the jungle to try escaping. Katsulas wants to die, but he doesn’t want to die like _that_.

He stands on the edge of high scaffolding and looks down. When he moves to take a step forward, primal terror surges cold and sharp as needles through his entire body, freezing his limbs and breath. The ground seems to fall further and further away as he stares down. It takes all of his willpower to drag himself away from the edge before anyone notices.

Kat has felt hatred before, but it’s the first time he can remember loathing _himself_. He wants to claw his own skin off with his fingernails, wants to scream and beat his limbs against the stone architecture until all he can feel are the bruises. Instead, he bites down on his forearms until crescents of blood bead his brown skin, barely visible above the fractal-patterned lightning scars.

No one notices, and the pain helps.

* * *

 

He is just shy of seventeen when he discovers other ways of losing himself. He is no longer a child, and while he will never be tall or broad, he is lithe and strong and has an attractive face despite the patchy scruff that is his first attempt at growing a beard.

Another teenager near his own age catches him in the shadows of an alcove in the ruins. Kat doesn’t know the other boy’s name, but he’s broad and handsome and his mouth is pleasantly dry and warm. When the boy pins Kat against the damp stone wall, Kat shudders with delight and forgets, just for a moment, how miserable and alone he is.

The boy finds him again later that night, and Kat accepts the unspoken offer by kissing him awkwardly and tugging him down to the worn bedroll, where Kat revels in the first sensation of warm, solid _contact_ he's enjoyed with another person in nearly seven years. The next morning he can still feel the bruises from the other boy’s teeth and hands.

It’s not much, but it’s better than the bruises and cuts he’s been giving himself. Kat learns to take comfort and pleasure whenever and wherever he can find it. It makes life just a little more bearable, and he spends less of his waking hours thinking of ways to die.

* * *

 

He is eighteen when he finally snaps, and the lightning returns. Years later, he can never quite remember what happened—what, after seven years of abuse and torture and degradation, was finally the breaking point.

All he remembers is the feeling of _power_ surging through his blood. The force storm cocoons his body and lifts him off the ground to hover, screaming with rage and triumph, over the overseers’ smouldering corpses.

He turns his power onto the rest of the camp, targeting the surviving overseers and guards just as he had done with the pirates eight years ago. Only _this_ time he does not fail. This time he is older and stronger and more controlled in his fury. But he has thoughts only of revenge, not escape, and by the time he’s purged the camp of Imperial slavedrivers, the Sith have arrived.

They lock his power down with ease. Katsulas does not know how to fight back—not against experienced Force users. He stares them down defiantly, ready and willing to die now that he’s had his revenge, now that his tormentors have known terror in their last, agonizing moments.

But the Sith do not kill him.

Instead they put him in restraints and send him to Korriban, where he’s given a set of crimson acolyte robes and a vibroblade and told that either he will prove himself worthy of the power in his blood and become Sith, or he will die.

Korriban is dry and dusty with a bitterly cold wind that cuts through its star’s warmth and stains everything it touches with dirt the color of dried human blood. After the lush jungles of Dromund Kaas, Korriban’s harsh red desert looks barren and sterile.

Katsulas likes it instantly. He steps off the docking ramp and fills his lungs with dry air. The breeze cuts through his loose tunic to wick the warmth away from his thin body, but he already feels stronger here. These sands are steeped in power—even more power than Dromund Kaas, and this is power Katsulas can use freely.

He’s not alone in that ability here. He’s heard enough about the Sith by now to know that his greatest enemies will be other acolytes just like him, and most of them will have had some amount of training. He is at a disadvantage.

It doesn’t matter. The same inexorable pull that caused him to abandon his parents at five years old and stow away on a smuggler’s ship finally resurfaces again. This time it draws him towards the doors of the Sith Academy.

Katsulas will not die. Not now that he’s tasted power and _purpose_. Not now that he has a way out.

He will be free.

He will be _Sith_.


End file.
